


Adamas

by uumuu



Series: Butterfly Nest [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Creepy, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 05:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6361081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Míriel makes some peculiar tapestries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adamas

Her tools had been given to her by the Valar themselves: needles, all made of bone polished to be pearl-bright, and silk thread from special cocoons that only thrived in the Halls of the dead. 

She was pleased by how ironic, how fitting, it was to use those tools against them in the making of very peculiar tapestries.

Míriel stood in front of the second of those tapestries, hung in the vast vault where all the dead passed once they reached the Halls. She had framed it with the words _mâchan_ at the top and _akašân_ at the bottom in bright golden thread, words in the Valar's own tongue whispered to her by her son. It depicted Námo standing against a background of darkness that seamlessly melted into the real dark at its sides. But it wasn't just an image: it was Námo's own essence captured and trapped into the fabric with every passage of her needles.

Námo's eyes were stitched close and so was his mouth. She hadn't given him limbs or ears, either: he was relegated into a world of utter silence and blackness, unforgiving as a curse.

Míriel let her eyes glide over the highest achievement of her craft to date, from top to bottom, then turned, the long robes she had embroidered with the same thread used for the tapestries trailing after her, specks of bright colour to which the lively riot of a multitude of butterflies had added itself.

Finwë approached her as soon as she started on her way back to Vairë's Halls. 

“Míriel, please, desist,” he said, wafting soundlessly next to her.

She was grateful to him for allowing her to gain a body again, and so she tolerated his attempts to turn her from her purpose.

“Finwë, once-beloved, I told you already: I will not.”

“What shall you gain by fighting the Valar? You shall only plunge Arda into a greater turmoil than it already faces.”

“Shall I? Can a world worse than one where their brother Moringotto is free to torment elves at will exist?” Míriel slickly retorted. “The Valar have proven unfit to rule us and Endor. What use are they, if they are incapable and unwilling of protecting us from Moringotto?” 

“What if they free themselves?”

“This isn't the physical world. Intention, will-power, the sound and meaning of words are the law here, and my will has been tempered, honed to diamond, by the Valar's own doings.” 

“But what if those outside find out?” Finwë insisted. “If they discover what you are doing, they will cast you to the Void.”

“I do not fear them. I have spent too many years in darkness already, a prisoner of their unjust statute...but they let Moringotto out, and now do nothing to apprehend him. The Valar only heed their own wounded pride and the shattered glory of their Aman. Well then, I will only attend to my own, too.” She stopped and faced her once-husband. Finwë's eyes were wide, and sorrowful, but clear. Finwë's eyes were still beautiful, even in death. She had been smitten by those eyes under the stars of Cuiviénen, and they still tugged at her heart. “Finwë, are you afraid?” she softly said, and put out a hand to his cheek, though she was made of flesh and he was a naked fëa and they couldn't properly touch. “You need not be. I do not resent you. You were simply too weak.”

Finwë shook his head feebly, his gaze fixed on her own eyes, which now held the same glow as the eyes of those born under the Trees. “Let our son –”

Míriel stopped him before he could finish his plea, pushing him away with a sweep of her hand. Her face hardened. “My son is safe with me...and happy.” She whirled around in a gust of colours, and disappeared beyond the archway that led into Vairë's Halls.

She walked looking straight ahead, her steps never faltering, towards the room where Vairë's spinning wheel and loom were.

As she stepped into it, the butterflies which had been resting on her robes took flight, and were met by those who had remained in the room. They had all been born from the cocoons which produced the silk. It was said they were the souls of lesser beings, animals and other mortal creatures whose time in the Halls was as fleeting as the lifespan of a butterfly.

The spinning wheel Vairë had used stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by baskets full of yarn in every possible colour, which Vairë's handmaidens kept bringing to her daily. Míriel had told them that Vairë would be gone for some time. The handmaidens were used to hearken to her as Vairë's most trusted, most competent aide, and for a while at least they would not question her words. 

She would work swiftly.

She took a chunk of roving out of one of the baskets and sat on the stool, careful not to upset her swollen belly. 

The baby inside her kicked. She smiled. She put the fibres in her lap, and hugged her womb with both hands.

“Hi there, my little fire,” she cooed. “It is time to return to our work.”

She kept her right palm flat against her womb, treadled on the pedal, and reached out with her left hand to check that the bobbin still spun freely. Satisfied with the soft whirring sound it made, she pinched the leader yarn already wound around the bobbin and pulled it through the opening of the flyer. Before starting, she glanced up at Vairë, trapped in the tapestry hung right before her.

“How does it feel to have _all_ change and choice taken from you?” she hissed. 

Vairë couldn't reply, or react in any other way. Her hands were stitched to the loom, and her mouth was stitched shut, but unlike her husband's her eyes weren't entirely closed. All Vairë could do was watch Míriel work. 

Míriel gave a gentle shove to the wheel to start it, and began treadling rhythmically on the pedal.

Her son again moved inside her womb. 

“We are rebels, you and I, brightest of all flames. Keep lending mommy your strength. I will make good use of it, and when I am done, I will give birth to you again, in a world of true freedom.” She paused, recalling Finwë's words. “But we _must_ stay together for now. I won't let anybody harm you, or take you from me.”

She held the wispy fibres close to her womb, while feeding them with practiced precision into the flyer to be twisted and wrapped onto the bobbin. Fibres become stronger if twisted together to the right degree, she reminded herself.

She started humming over the silvery rattling of the spinning wheel, while the butterflies danced around her.

**Author's Note:**

> Silkworms are actually moths (and generally not that colourful), but I took some liberties.
> 
> Mâchan means "authority, authoritative decision" in Valarin, and akašân means "He says" (with reference to Eru).


End file.
